2005 Vauxhall Zafira Elegance review from UK and Ireland

Essentially the problem was

- a leak under the driver's seat - onto the road.

- the dealers in the Vauxhall network/NetworkQ are generally reluctant to service cars that have not been bought through their own dealership.

I recently bought a Zafira Elegance with a Network Q guarantee from a Cambs based dealer and still within the 3 year Vauxhall guarantee (the car is 8 months old).

Despite being generally happy with the car, I noticed a couple of problems so I then contacted my closest garage in Herts.

Once the employee established that the car had not been bought from them, he mentioned that it would probably not be covered and he became a bit hostile. It also said they could only provide a courtesy car after making sure the problem was NetworkQ related. Essentially I would need the car to drive back home so it was clear this was important.

Our other car is a VW and I never had the slightest issue with cover from any of their retailers. I find it shocking that a Vauxhall retailer tries to upset and/or discriminate in this way. I thought they could ignore the commitment they should have to the vauxhall and networkq brands. Additionally anyone is entitled to be spoken to courteously in a garage.

We had some experience of the kind with cowboy garages, but have always been happy with the VW service, they even went the extra mile to make me feel confortable to have my imported car serviced in their garage! It surprised me to see that Vauxhall distributors could behave less properly than independent multi-brand garages.

I wrote to Vauxhall to ask what they planned to do to address this type of issue.

A lady rang me from Vauxhall and she was very polite, but essentially just said they would report to the vauxhall customer liaison (account manager) for that dealer.

I said I was not happy with it. I mentioned this had happened with another vauxhall garage, and that they could easily pose as a customer to verify the attitude, but that was no something they wanted to do!

A month has gone by and I still have serious reservations regarding advising any of my acquaintances to use a Vauxhall garage, clearly Vauxhall does not care enough.